Stephanie is interning with the Google Docs Marketing team this summer and surveyed students to find out about how you're using Docs on and off campus.

Last month I asked you how you use Google Docs on campus. After hearing from over 50 students, I wanted to share some highlights of what we learned from you along the way:How do students mainly use Google Docs?BrainstormingWhether it's taking notes during a group project brainstorm session or outlining a research paper, Google Docs helps you get your thoughts down quickly and allows you to access them from anywhere later.

Group workMany of you use Google Docs to contribute your part to a group project, but just as many use it outside the classroom. Student groups are collecting RSVPs with Google forms, taking meeting minutes with Google documents, and balancing budgets with Google spreadsheets.

Personal record keepingHave a to-do list or want to keep a weekly budget? Many of you are using Google Docs to stay on track with daily tasks.

Your favorite thing about Google Docs?CollaborationBacking up important work is great too, but far and away students enjoy being able to contribute to the same document with friends and classmates. And it's not just about the class projects. For instance, Students for Obama used Google spreadsheets to tell each other who had participated in phone banks, who was going on certain trips, and who would complete certain tasks.

Most creative uses we heard from you:

"Two of my friends used Google spreadsheets to play Dungeons and Dragons with each other."- Chris, Worchester Polytechnic Institute, Computer Science

"Our club leadership used Google Docs for everything from constitution-writing to picking the new board, and during interviews, we would take notes on interviewees in the same doc."- Justin, Harvard University, Anthropology

Thanks to everyone who volunteered your time; it really helps the Google Docs team key in to what's important to students so we can continue to make the product better for you. With back to school right around the corner, I'm interested to try out some of your ideas in my own campus life, and I hope some of these ideas may inspire you to get started with Docs as well.

Robert, a rising senior at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, is interning with the Search Marketing team on iGoogle in Mountain View this summer.

Growing up in the 80's and 90's, I've always been a fan of comics. I remember collecting Batman and Superman comics and scouring through the comics section in the Sunday paper and let's not even forget the awesome Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... ah, those were the days. Even now in college, I've met new friends who have introduced me to Japanese manga, and comics remain a big part of my life.

In celebration of Comic-Con's 40th anniversary, we've teamed up with top comics creators to bring you 50 new themes to stylize your iGoogle homepage. The comics world is so diverse that there's something for everyone. I'm sure everyone can admit, we've all enjoyed some memorable characters in comics whether it be Charlie Brown from Peanuts, alternative comics like Owly, or villain-destroying-heroes like Iron Man. We hope you enjoy these themes in customizing your iGoogle homepage to make it even more personal.

We got so excited that we teamed up with renowned comics artist Jim Lee to create a comics themed doodle to celebrate Comic-Con. In case you missed it, here it is.

In the spirit of graduation season, we're doing a series of posts every Friday throughout the summer that provide tips for graduating seniors, so stay tuned for more!

Whether you're starting a new job, or traveling for a few months, or moving to a new city, you might want to keep a journal of this time in your life. Personally, I've been very unsuccessful with keeping journals or diaries over the years. It was always something I aspired to, but my notebooks would ultimately be full of blank pages.

For a while, I tried blogging as well, but my commitment to writing daily posts waned over time. That is, until I learned a useful feature in Blogger that made documenting the day-to-day events of my life super simple. And since then, I've kept up with my posts for over 2 years!

I essentially photo blog, meaning instead of writing lengthy text posts about my life, I just capture what goes on in pictures that I post online. What makes this process even simpler is that I'm able to take a spontaneous photo on my mobile phone, email it to my blog's address, and have the photo published within seconds.

After doing this for two years, it's amazing to go back and look at what I took a picture of months or a year ago, and to remember what I was doing or who I was with at the exact time and moment the photo was posted to my blog.

Now take a photo on your mobile phone, and email it to the Blogger address you created. The subject line for the email will be the post's title, and you can include text in the body of the email that will appear along with your photo on your blog.

Last year we launched the Google Online Marketing Challenge — a global university competition that gives undergraduate and post-graduate students hands-on exposure to online marketing. Working with their professors, teams receive the equivalent of US$200 to spend on Google AdWords advertising, then work with a local business to devise an effective online marketing campaign. Teams are given three weeks to mastermind the strategy before submitting a campaign report to an international judging panel of professors.

Today we announce the results; our global winners come from Deakin University, Australia and were taught by Chia Yao Lee and Bardo Fraunholz. The team of Andrew Kidd, Richard Blakely, Kevin Fung, Clinton Hinze, Katalin Kish and Howard Lien worked with a local kids play center, www.littletigrrs.com.au, to create a well-crafted campaign that highly impressed our judges.

We sent a survey out to every participating team, professor and business and the results were overwhelmingly positive. One professor noted, "The Google Online Marketing Challenge is among the most practical learning experiences one can offer their students. Thanks, Google!" Students seemed to agree, one commenting, "The Google Challenge enabled me to develop my online marketing and consultant skills by working with a real business. The Google Challenge has been the best assignment I have ever had!"

And finally, my personal favorite favourite:

"The teams have bonded and the learning process was blissful in every way! Our BEST memories ever: Thank YOU for having opened the Challenge to overseas students. It means the WORLD to us!!!"For anyone interested in competing in the 2010 Challenge, formal registrations will open later this year, but in the meantime you can register your interest.

Last week we were thrilled to welcome fifty students from North America -- from the University of Alberta to Morehouse College to the American University of Puerto Rico -- in New York City for the first-ever Google FUSE. Aimed at connecting top rising sophomores from underrepesented backgrounds in CS, this retreat brought together some of the best and brightest students for three days of making new connections, creating new ideas, and getting to know Google.

What better way to help these talented students to build their network than by bringing them together to solve some interesting challenges? After bonding over a game of computer science trivia and designing web and mobile ready applications, these budding computer scientists have both virtual and real worlds at their fingertips.

We think it's safe to say that this pilot year went well, and that we look forward to fielding applications for FUSE 2010 soon enough!

Whether you've created an awesome group project, planned a hassle-free spring break trip, or just written a fun form using Google Docs, you can now share your ideas and creations with other students in just a few clicks.

As of last week, the Google Docs Template Gallery is now accepting public template submissions. Help contribute to the collection of student templates by selecting the "Students and Teachers" category when uploading your template.

If you're not ready to create your own yet, you can still check out and take advantage of templates geared for school in the Students & Teachers section of the gallery.

For more information on submitting your own templates, check out this post on the Google Docs blog.

In the spirit of graduation season, we're doing a series of posts every Friday throughout the summer that provide tips for graduating seniors, so stay tuned for more!

Tasks just graduated from Gmail Labs this week, and it's a useful feature that can help you keep track of the many things you probably need to get done as you're getting your post-college life set up -- from meeting project due dates at your new job to remembering you and your roommates' list of groceries for the week. You can create separate lists for groceries, errands, work, etc., and you can assign dates and add notes to each task. You can even turn a Gmail message into a task.

To get started with your first list, just click "Tasks" under the "Contacts" link above your Gmail chat list. And since Gmail isn't the only place where you need access to your check lists, Tasks is also available on mobile phones (so you can get stuff done on the go), in Google Calendar, and you can even add Tasks to iGoogle.

Watch this video to see Tasks in action:

For more Apps news

Did you know that Gmail and Google Calendar are just two of several products in Google Apps? To get updates and news on all the Apps products, check out the Google Apps Blog!

Soumya, a rising senior at Wellesley College, is interning with the GeoMarketing team in Mountain View this summer. A Bay Area native, she's enjoying discovering unique local businesses on Google Maps. After spending the last semester scurrying between classes, the dining hall, the library, and...(did I already say dining hall?)... I seem to have lost track of the amazing restaurants, art galleries, and shops that live beyond the borders of my college campus bubble.

But working with the Google Maps team this summer has helped me learn about all the local places and businesses that can be found online, from a New York record store with one of the largest collections of hip-hop vinyls, to one of San Francisco's weekly farmer's markets, to an incredible piece of public art in Chicago. And to better help connect other students with these spots, we on the Maps team are now highlighting the favorite places of local experts in cities around the world.

Nate Valentine, founder of Vintage 415 in San Francisco, shares his favorite places to eat and dress in the city by the Bay without breaking your bank account. Grab Sunday brunch at Foreign Cinema, where you can eat your pancakes while watching foreign film, or get your hair cut at Alex Sandor Art Studio, an environmentally friendly hair salon.

So while you're enjoying your summer vacation, skip those re-run marathons and instead start discovering all your town has to offer using Google Maps!

To explore the full collection of favorite places, please visit google.com/favoriteplaces or visit m.google.com/fav from your phone's browser.

In the spirit of graduation season, we're doing a series of posts every Friday throughout the summer that provide tips for graduating seniors, so stay tuned for more!

It wasn't until after my friends and I had graduated and left the bubble that was our college life that I realized how much I'd taken our years of proximity for granted. For four years, we were never more than a 10 minute walk or a quick bike ride away from each other. And now we're in all parts of the world, in different time zones, and sometimes separated by long flights.

If you and your friends are scattered across cities too, you should try keeping in touch with voice and video chat in Gmail. You can either make a voice call (pretty much a phone call, but it's free and you don't have to use up your cell phone minutes!), or if you have a web cam, you can make a video call to chat with friends "face to face."

Wow! We received some amazing entries for the Google SketchUp 2009 International Student Bridge Modeling Competition. Higher education students from over 65 countries registered for the competition, 42 collections were created in the Google 3D Warehouse, and 77 bridges were modeled from all over the world. The types of bridges range from historical to pedestrian, rail and highway - and they were all certainly impressive. Check out our winners page for details and comments from our illustrious panel of judges.

And the winners are...1st PlaceJason WongSchool of Architecture and Construction Management, Washington State University, United States

Have you ever had a hard time keeping track of a big group project? Do you ever wish you could find a way to promote a competition or school event? Want to get more attention for your student group or club? In case you haven't met yet, please allow us to introduce you to Google Sites.

Google Sites are a great tool for students - for example, as a way to work with others to collaborate on a group project. You can embed a calendar to keep track of deadlines; or a Google spreadsheet to keep track of your research. When it comes time to turn in your project, you can even include videos or slide shows right in your site.

If you want to promote a school event like a class election, you can create a site with videos and information about all of the candidates and even embed a Google form so students can vote or send feedback. Here's an example site for a Ski Club, to give you an idea of what's possible.

To see how some students are using Google Sites in the classroom, check out our new Sites for Teachers page.